Manipulation Under Twin Moons
by Sors
Summary: Kuja strikes a devilish little deal with his younger brother for redemption. Should he succeed Zidane will see to it that Kuja never has to hide his face again, but if he fails...? Kuja, Zidane and Mikoto centered fic.
1. A Universal Truth

Kuja strikes a devilish little deal with his younger brother for redemption

Kuja strikes a devilish little deal with his younger brother for redemption. Should he succeed Zidane will see to it that Kuja never has to hide his face again, but if he fails… Chapter One: A Universal Truth.

Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy 9, nor do I claim too, all of it's characters are simply being borrowed by me to play with. Any characters not appearing in FF9, are mine and do belong to me.

Notes before you begin: 1. Pairings to be attempted in this fic are Kuja/Beatrix, Zidane/Dagger, Lani/Blank, and Mikoto/Fratley. Listed in order of importance. 2. This isn't a Romance fic, it's Kuja redemption fic, so don't expect goo everywhere. 3. I'm a horrible updater, and if I forget to update feel free to send me hate mail, it'll probably help me finish it sooner.

Chapter One: A Universal Truth.

Zidane stared obnoxiously at me. I cringed and stared back at him, oddly enough he seemed completely oblivious to his rudeness and me. All of the sudden the golden hared hero sprung up like a monkey from his seat. He turned towards the shelf of books in Alexandria's magnificent library and pulled one off.

"You know brother, I've been reading."

"That must be extremely taxing on you, how are you fairing?" I asked as sincerely as I could.

"Arrrg… I can read! For crying out loud everyone always pegs me as dumb. Even Dagger was surprised when I told her about the deal with the Iifa."

"I must admit that I can see why… Zidane, you happened to leave out that slight little fact that I was there. I'm sure she wouldn't be so surprised if she knew that I had told you what to do." I smirked back at my brother and twisted some hair between my fingers. Lucky the silvery locks were coming back into their normal length, it had been such a pity that to chop so much of it off. And then having to deal with that blasted assassin who had been after Eiko. I still didn't understand why I had to go solve the problem, besides some obvious repentance… Yet still, it hardly seemed worthy of my skills, surely a few guards and that brat could have killed the man.

"Well anyway. I was reading about this guy named Amories. He killed his best friend's wife, and was looking for redemption…"

"Give it up Zidane. My redemption can only be obtained by bribing the whole world. Both living and _dead."_

Zidane sighed at me and frowned at what I had said. "Oh come on, you at least have to hear this one. I guarantee it's better then the rest."

"It better be."

"Alright. So here's how it goes in the story. Amories goes on three quests to redeem himself. The first he quests to redeem himself before the Law. To do that he's got to save the lives of three women who are doomed because the law cannot reach them. The second is that he quests to redeem himself before the Public. To do that he goes and saves the children of the town from a dark messenger. Then finally he must redeem himself before the wife. So he journeys to the underworld to seek forgiveness. On the way he has to free the wrongly imprisoned souls of hell, and by doing that he right's himself in the gods eyes. However when he meets the wife she wont forgive him unless he can take back what he has done."

"And therein lies the problem Zidane." I interrupted him cruelly.

"You'd think so too wouldn't you?"

"Oh dear, don't tell me you want me to bring half the world back to life—"

"Nooo!" Zidane huffed up and flipped open the book to near the end. "Damn Kuja, your always a pessimist. What he does is promises her and her husband the bodies of his first daughter and son."

"What sort of sick – Zidane! I can't promise off my unborn children! I can't even possibly have that many!" I shook my head wondering at my brother's idiocy and stood.

"Kuja would you just listen! I've got a plan!" He begged with his cute puppy dog face, just rubbing is how obnoxiously good he was.

"Fine! Out with it then." I clicked my hand in front of his face, noting that my old overly demanding personality was resurfacing.

"You don't need children, you can make mages."

I opened my eyes in surprise, the idea did make a certain amount of sense… "But I would need to make the mages from Mist." Once again a problem.

"What about Terra?"

"It's gone Zidane, there isn't anything left there."

"Yes there is, Garland spoke to me from beneath BranBal. That means there are soul's in BranBal, just waiting…" Zidane had another idiotic smile on his face, as though he thought he had finally out smarted me at something.

"Then I'll owe them." As if I didn't already owe them for blowing up their world.

"Owe them what? Their world is gone, they're practically gone too. It doesn't matter."

"I'm thinking this would only succeed in making people more pissed at me."

"Kuja, I have it on good authority that this'll work." Zidane crossed his arms and frowned at me, "Come on, trust me. I wouldn't have you go dashing about for nothing."

"Really now? Why I wouldn't put it past you to find something like that amusing." I tossed my hair at him.

"No, that's you... You're the one who sends people on errands." I briefly remember the incident with the Glug stone, and flinched inwardly at his taunt.

"Well let me think about it." And with that I brushed past my younger brother and headed out into the dark rooms beyond. Pairs of torches lined the walls providing the only light in the castle at this time of night. Some footsteps up ahead alerted me to a presence and I quickly dodged behind a window curtain. From there I could hear the definite click of iron upon marble. It was also a very feminine sounding step, casting my mind out I could feel the powerful white mage lingering on the other side of the curtain. Not powerful enough to be Garnet, but definitely someone with skill. More then likely it was Beatrix, or a 14 year old Eiko out for the midnight stroll.

A sigh caught my attention and immediately I knew that Beatrix did stand just a few feet away. I listened then carefully, and she let out another long drawn out sigh. It couldn't be the sort of sigh that a person who seemed to be so filled with joy could let out either. I might have categorized that sigh under, longing for lost lover or pining away after sexy stripper. Unfortunately that certainly wasn't me she was pining away after.

To Beatrix I was a very, very ,very dead mage. No more then a man who her queen helped kill; no less then the man who had courted her attention at one of Brahne's festivities. I wondered now deeply why she had returned any of my attention at all. After all, she saw into my marvelous plan, even if she didn't completely comprehend my intentions.

According to Zidane, Beatrix and Steiner were being married in a few weeks, so she hardly had anything to sigh about. If anything I should be the one sighing my life away. I had regrets, anguishes, complications; hell I even qualified for the 'most unpopular bachelor of the year' award.

So while I was happily lost in my own self pitying I felt, or rather saw, Beatrix's sword go straight through the curtain just inches from my nose. It made a horrible tinging noise as it hit the wall, which proceeded to damage and ring throughout my ears.

Instinctively I ducked as her sword was withdrawn from the curtain. "Show yourself—"

Proudly I cut her off from her speech, "For you face the mighty, and slightly blind, Beatrix!" That of course seemed to cut her off as has she watched me rise from behind the curtain she blinked her one eye in surprise.

Beatrix

He stood up, staring at me with a level grin. For a moment he reminded me of the, thankfully dead, murder Kuja. But the smile wasn't fitting for that man, and the hair was to short and scraggly. His hair which caught the moon light outside only appeared to be silver.

"Damn it Zidane! What on earth are you doing!?" I responded to him, although technically he was my king… Then again Zidane didn't act enough like a king to be considered one.

"Me?" He asked slightly surprised, and then he shrugged carelessly. "I was going to jump you, but I guess you heard me."

I rolled my eyes at him and stalked off, for some reason his voice kind of sounded like Kuja's. I guess I hadn't noticed it till now. It made sense however, Zidane and that man were brothers. Not only that but Zidane was loosing his old Lindblum accent to his new Alexandrian one, Kuja had always spoken with a slightly Alexandrian tone…

"Hello Beatrix! Fancy seeing you out here." Zidane said strolling up from the opposite direction from which I had left him.

"What do you want now Zidane?" I glowered at him.

"What do you mean want now?" He asked pouting his lip ever so slightly, and his tied up hair bobbed back and forth behind him. It struck me then that in order to be able to have gotten there he would either have had to run faster then anyone I knew, or learned how to teleport overnight.

"How did you get all the way over here?" I asked noticing that his clothes, which had been a pair of white pants and darker cloak were now a pair of red pants and a loose white shirt. "Wait a second, when did you change?"

"Change?"

"Yes! Change, I just saw you no thirty feet that way in a pair of white pants and darker cloak!" I felt as though my head was about to explode and I wouldn't ever figure this one out. He was playing with me. He had to be.

"Oh really." He looked somewhat startled. "I think that you must have seen one of the other Genomes… You know there are a few here in Alexandria."

"B-but…" I shook my head there was something going on here. "Nevermind, I must be tried." I waved him off and headed down the stairs before he could get any more fun out of his little game.

I walked down the stairs and out towards the main stairway when I spotted the dark cloaked figure. I couldn't possibly have imagined this man more then once, so quickly I removed my shoes and went creeping after him. He walked out front and then lifted up the hood on the back of his cloak, quietly he passed through the main doors and headed out towards the right. I crouched up to the door way and waited a moment before peeping out through it. Just barely could I see him, or who ever it was, heading to the tower to the right. He passed between the two guards who simply nodded at him, and then headed up the stairs. Casually I walked over to the men who guarded it. They both saluted as I approached. "Madam!"

"Soldiers, who just went through this door?" I asked in a serious tone.

"Zidane, Madam." One replied. I nodded and then headed between them and into the building. The guard near the entrance to the port waved at me and pointed at the door to the stairs. "If your looking for Zidane, madam, he went that way." I thanked him curtly and then quietly opened the door.

Stairs towered up above me, and a slight sound of clicking shoes came down to my ears. It seemed familiar, but I couldn't place exactly who it was that created that sound. Quickly I ran up the stairs, it didn't matter much now whether I was quite or not. Who ever this person was I had them trapped up here, no escape would be found at the top of this tower. Especially after the Garnet had escaped all those years ago and the banners had been removed.

Above me the footsteps quickened, and I pushed hard trying not to recognize the burning sensation in my legs for what it was. Damn, if this was another of Zidane's damn games I would kill him.

The stairs evened out at the last moment and I had to slow myself before I launched through the open door. I brought forth the Save the Queen and darted out onto the rampart. My eyes fluttered to both sides. He wasn't on my side so quickly I reached out my sword tapped it as far to my left as I could before I darted about the left. Instantly I crashed into the body of a slim, and relatively tall man. He shoved off the ground as quickly as he fell, and I knew then exactly who this was.

"Kuja." The word came out melodramatically as I was horribly out of breath from just running up the stairs. He looked at me with those suddenly cat like eyes and I knew it was him.

He paused and then stepped back, weary of me, which was quite the opposite of what I had expected. "Beatrix." He frowned as he said it, and then took another step back.

"How is this? Why would Zi—" He cut me off before I could finish that, and waved a hand through his hair, it was so characteristic of him to do that. Wave everything away with the stroke of his hand...

"Zidane has his reasons, as would anyone who knew I was alive."

"This is insane! What about the span on your life?" It might not have been the best question to ask, but I asked it anyway. There was no way Zidane couldn't know his brother was still alive. And hadn't Garnet told me that when Zidane told her the story, Kuja was seeking redemption? Could that really be true, Kuja – a mass murder – seeking redemption. A little far fetched at the very least.

"That's an odd question to ask, I expected something like 'Oh why did you do it Kuja?' or the very popular 'Why did Zidane allow you to live?'" His lips twisted up into his ultimate smirk as he looked into what I hoped was a cold and hard face. However I wasn't expecting him to leap up upon the railing of the terrace and glance down. It was a precarious position at the very least, and unless he had magically learned to fly….?

"Kuja wait…" I lowered my sword slightly, "Zidane knows you're here doesn't he?"

"No." And with that he flipped backward off the stones and plunged downward. I ran to edge only to catch a glimpse of the Silver Dragon which Dagger had related to me in her tales. It was strange to see him land that gracefully upon it's back before being whisked away.

"I need to find Zidane…" I sighed as I did so dreading the next week more then ever before.

Kuja

I awoke with the particularly itchy and tickling feeling of having feathers stuffed up your nose. Although in retrospect I certainly deserved every discomfort that the world could muster.

Naropa my dragon of the last four years shifted in response to my movement. She was a wonderful beast, although her mental capacity out weighted my original darling Meruava, she was still a beast. Her feathers unlike Meruava's were longer and held much more weight, yet she wasn't a powerful beast. She could out fly and out carry, but never out fight. So when Zidane had given her to me as a present I had been modestly disappointed.

She did however have her advantages. Long distance travel, unlike on Meruava, could continue well into the night with out tiring her greatly. Taking other people along for a ride would never have been possible either, but Naropa could easily carry three.

She shifted again and I felt a rush of wind down my side as my cloak came undone. I quickly moved to pull the heavy fabric back up against my skin, and then snuggled back down among the feathers.

Little flecks of pink colored sunlight sparkled upon the dragons feathers as we started to glide past the Iifa tree. It was dormant now, Zidane had seen to that after I explained what had to be done.

I could see the other dragons who now lived in the hallows of the tree bellowing out to us. Naropa shied away, still forgetting that there wasn't a dragon alive that could actually take me on. A few foolish ones leapt up into the air and streamed quickly out towards us. I saw two attempting to encircle us. The primitive hunting strategy was no use when the prey could easily defend itself. I patted her restless back, and raised one of my hands. "Firaga." I barely had to speak the word and flames were jumping from my hand only to eager to chase the dragons away. One of them attempted to fly through the raging aerial flames, and found himself promptly incinerated.

"Like a moth to a flame." I remarked as Naropa and I soared away into the rising sun. We continued to arch further east as the day went on. Her wings caught the Northern Wind easily and we road the cooler air into the desert. I felt her drop the tips of her wings down, and our altitude quickly changed. Her wings beat against gravity lightly as we came closer to the entrance of the cave. And then finally she dropped down onto the edge of the outside balcony. I gently stepped off her unto the platform and rubbed her nose lightly. "Go get some sleep, I'll bring you food later." With a crash she jumped off into the air and glided down into the place where airship's hulls had once rested. There was straw and hay, as well as trinkets that I had bought for her. And she quickly snuggled in amongst it all.

I walked towards the teleporter on the far end of the cave, practically grinning at the monsters that attempted to hide themselves in the shadows. I stepped upon the teleporter and directed it to take me to my main room. It was time for some research on Zidane's new little proposal.

Mikoto

I raised my eyes as my brother came wondering into his library, personally I hadn't expected him to be home for another day. What a pity.

"Mikoto?" He asked looking at me moderately surprised.

"Yes?"

"What on Terra are you doing?"

"Reading… That's what one does with a book."

"Yes, but in my house."

"You weren't home." I replied earnestly.

"Oh, so that makes it perfectly expectable to sneak about my house."

"I thought I had an open invitation." I queried back, after all he had told me I was welcome whenever I wanted to come.

"I believe normally the person who owns the home is supposed to—"

"I know that." I cut him off not wanting to listen to his overly dynamic speech. "But I thought you would be home, but you weren't. Besides, what am I going to do? Steal your precious library? It's not like I'm Zidane." He stared at me coldly, and then finally replied.

"Alright, stay if you must. I've got things to do so don't be bothering my work."

I grinned at him, and he simply waved a hand through his hair before heading up the stairs to where the fictional books were kept. It was a pity Kuja had turned out so very much like the one he hated. If only he knew that when I was back on Terra Garland had repeated that same phrase to me at least a hundred times. I was always out of his way; doing my one research or experiments, but the man refused to believe that I could possibly maintain things in such a manor.

I turned my head back down to the work on in my hands about genetically mutated Genomes. It had been written by Garland on several of his 'failed' experiments. The first was a young female who came out with two tails, and the cases progressed steadily from that point. The final one being Kuja himself. It was more of a record book of what sort of mutations caused what sort of effects and how the Genome would cope, if they could, with the mutation. I knew for certain that Kuja hadn't ever read this one, seeing as it had been kept in Garland's library since I was little.

I had taken quite a few of the books from the underground lab with me. Zidane had thought I was an idiot for grabbing the pile of papers and books which were kept on a shelf down there. But he no longer regretted that action. After all this one in particular was vital to my saving Kuja's life.

Such a pity I couldn't have grabbed everything. Especially the books on Pandemonium, those I had always wanted to read. I flipped another page coming to a very particular case about a Genome who's eyes glowed an unnatural color. Garland's hypothesis had never been proved in this case, but he suspected that it wasn't the genetic structure itself that cause the issue, it was the added mist to the solution. I found it a pity that there practically wasn't any Mist left on Gaia, if there had been then perhaps I could have preformed an experiment to see the effects of Mist upon human bodies.

"Mikoto, have you ever read a play about a man named Amories?" Kuja's voice came echoing down from the above library shelf.

"No." I replied quaintly.

"I see…" I could hear his footsteps coming down the stairs and he turned to look at me. "Would you like anything to eat?"

"I suppose."

He nodded and headed out into the hallway, past a moggle and around through the looping halls. He finally slipped up past the balcony for the security system and onto the teleporter. We arrived in the masterfully done dinning room. It was small in comparison to most of Kuja's rooms. Obviously though the man didn't place much importance on eating. I sat down at one of the gold rimmed chairs and watched as he headed off into the kitchen. It was hard to image my brother cooking, so I simply refused to follow him. Instead I contented myself with loosening the tops on the salt and pepper shakers and turning the knives upside down. I took the cushions on the chairs and tied them on backwards, and then I headed over to the candles and turned them upside down.

I was completely satisfied with myself as Kuja returned with a plate of sandwiches and a bowl of tomato soup. And as he sat them down on the counter and flicked his hand at the candles I remained perfectly calm. And at first he didn't even notice that the flame wasn't catching. But then he did and frowned flicking his hand out again and letting a flame jump forth. Again the candle didn't catch, so he tried again, and a fourth time, till finally he pulled the candle out of it's holder and realized what was wrong. He then quickly looked at me, however I pretended innocently to be plucking the tasty looking cheesy pieces of bread off the platter.

He growled at the candles, fixed them both and lit them. I noticed the way one of them leaned to the right after being well heated by Kuja's rather dumb attempt at lighting it on fire.

_Note to self, Kuja's has the same stubborn gene Zidane has. _

We proceeded for a little while with out to much of an interruption, but soon Kuja was fidgeting in his seat attempting to right the backwards seat cushion with out my notice. I allowed him a moment to right the cushion by lifting the bowl of soup to my lips and watching from the corner of my eye as he quickly turned the cushion about.

Next up was the knife. Kuja had been going to cut the sandwich in half when he pricked himself on the knife. However he only made a small face at in annoyance, and flipped it over.

It was unfortunate that by the end of the meal he had yet to touch the salt or pepper shakers. But I supposed that they could be left alone till another lunch.

"That was quite good Kuja. I had no idea you could cook."

"I've only been living alone for five years." He countered.

"Oh yes. Well, still... I assume that some people do have surprising talents." And I shifted the napkin in front of my mouth to hide my smile.

Please review and let me know what you think of it so far. Any inconsistencies you note I would be happy to clear up, and I always love questions.

Last edit: May 18, 2008


	2. Someone’s Revenge

Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy 9, nor do I claim too, all of it's characters are simply being borrowed by me to play with. Any characters not appearing in FF9, are mine and do belong to me.

**Chapter Two: Someone's Revenge **

I walked back and forth across the catwalk for the stage. Ruby was below me practicing her death scene alone. Every so often she would pretend to be stabbed by an unseen sword and then grab the guy's shirt and shake him before finally falling down. From up here it looked ridiculous. But I knew that in the actual play the scene looked great.

I watched as she stood back up and dusted herself off and prepared herself for the next scene where she came back from the dead. Blank, who was up on the catwalk too, walked over stretching his arms out.

"Hey Zidane."

"Hi Blank." I gave him a slight hug and he slapped me on the back. "I managed to get out of the castle for a while."

"Nice, I imagine Dagger's taking care of things."

"Yeah, she's visiting with one of those morons from the Northern Continent." I scratched the back of my head unconsciously and then stopped remembering that it was impolite. "So I thought I'd skip down here for some lunch, and… Well I'm avoiding Beatrix."

"Hun?" Black looked at me surprised.

"Yeah, she ran across Kuja last night and thought it was me. So I'm trying to avoid getting questioned by her."

"Ah, I see." He put a hand under his chin and looked down at Ruby who was redoing her death scene. "You'll have to confront her about it eventually, and you know how women are… They don't like being put off."

"Yeah, yeah." I frowned and followed Blank's gaze. "So how are things working out with you and Ruby."

"Not to well. I mean, she's great and everything, but sometimes I feel like all she wants is attention. One moment she's mad, the next she happy. It's so stressful to deal with her sometimes, I think I need a break or a vacation." Black fidgeted with his feet and looked away from me. It was obvious that he didn't want to talk about it. Although he did give a heartless laugh in attempt to cover it up.

"Yeah, well you'll figure something out. Anyway—" I said changing the subject. "I heard Baku is taking you guys treasure hunting out near Daguerreo."

"Yeah, he is. That Lani chick has some sort of _operation_ out there and Baku wants to settle things up with her territory wise."

"Lani? I thought she was a bounty hunter?" I asked him remembering the big breasted chick who ran about with Amerant.

"Yep. She changed positions seeing as no one's really interested in bounty hunters. I mean, you know how things were, now people just got so much more to be thankful for. And it isn't like there's a lack of jobs anywhere, so no one turns to stealing like we did."

"Hun, the world's so different now. It's almost like this isn't the Gaia I remember."

"It isn't." Blank responded lamely, "So you gonna take me out for lunch in Lindblum or what?"

"Sure, sure." Zidane said and walked Blank out of the theater and towards the castle's newly constructed airship hanger where the Invincible waited.

Kuja

Oh yes, two could most definitely play at this game.

"So Mikoto, want to head out to Daguerreo, or maybe Lindblum?" I asked her casually as I poured some salt onto my omelet.

"Why would I want to go there?" There was an unusual smirk on her face.

"Some fabulous books there, plus I want a copy of that play Zidane was talking about."

"You haven't read it yet?"

"No—" I said looking down and noticing the large pile of salt which had fallen down on top of my omelet. "Mikoto…"

"Oh dear! Would you look at that."

I let out a frustrated sigh and twitched a finger in the direction of her plate, which made the object elevate towards me. I then slid my own omelet towards her. "Next time you plan on destroying my meal I'm locking you in the dungeons."

She looked at me and then grabbed a bowl which had contained her fruit earlier. Taking the omelet she poured the salt off and then shot me another glare. It didn't really matter considering that I already knew I was going to lock her up on account of being a little prat anyway.

I finished the rest of my meal watching Mikoto gag as she hit a particularly salty piece. Inside I laughed, but on the outside I only flashed her the customary smirk as she pulled the glass of water towards her.

_Kuja, you're an ass. _ She thought at me, and I easily picked one of my more complacent remarks to throw back at her. "Oh yes, I always thought they were beautiful beasts too, but hardly in comparison to me."

Mikoto glared at me with a deep passion and then turned back to scrapping salt off her meal. She took another sip of water as I left the room, and I flicked on the security system mentally. Setting it to attack and capture; after all, Mikoto could use a night in the dungeons. I headed outside towards my living room, taking in a nice view of one of my newly renovated rooms which I was letting Mikoto stay in. She had managed to keep it in fairly nice care, which was surprising considering her attitude towards me.

Relaxing into one of the many sofas in the room I picked up and book and closed my eyes, reaching out towards a mind which I could feel half a world away.

_Zidane?_ I called to him silently.

_Heya Kuja, what's up? _He responded, I could felt the Invincible tugging gently at the back of his mind. It meant that he was currently in control of the ship.

_I'm just letting you know that I'm leaving Mikoto here for the night, she'll be fine since I turned the security system on. _

_Oh yeah? Where you headed to?_

_Gurugu Volcano._

_What for? As I remember you weren't to fond of the monks. _

_I wanted to check out some of the machinery I left there from a while back. _

_Machinery? _I could hear Zidane's voice spark into interest, he was growing rather fond of tinkering with the machines for creating Black Mages.

_Yes, some more dangerous things from Terra's past that used to be on the Invincible. Weapons, scanners, a lot of random junk that Garland was pack ratting away on the ship. _

_Alright, let me take a look at it next time I stop by the palace. _

_Sure, I'm going to stop by Daguerreo to, I wanted to look into that book you've been ranting about. _

_Oh yeah…. Um… About that, I was offering up my idea to Dagger and she called me a moron. _

_No really? Well that's not surprising. _I found my body actually smiling at the thought of the Queen going on a rage about another of Zidane's attempts to help me. _I assume that she was ever so slightly pissed that your not spending time on the kingdom like your spending on me? _

Something like that.

Which reminds me. I cut him off. I had a run in with Beatrix, twice last night.

Twice?

Yes, she caught me leaving you and then when I was leaving from the tower. She figured out who I am, and didn't exactly seem disturbed either.

That's odd, you only blew half her world to pieces.

Yes, I noticed that.

Zidane paused lost in whatever internal thought he had. I suppose I'll have to ask her to keep the secret as well, nothing else to do about it.

I could place another memory charm on her next time I stop by. I suggested considering how well the other three were working on her.

You know, at the rate your going with bumping into her I'm not sure it's worth it. So I'll just tell her, see what she does, and we can move from there.

Simple enough.

Anyway, I'm heading out to lunch with Blank and I'd hate to run the Invincible into another airship since I'm not paying attention, so byebye.

_Bye Zidane. _I felt the connection to my brother snap and pulled the book up in front of my face to read.

Garnet

I let my eyes droop as the idiots from some random village left. They wanted to get a trading deal with Alexandria and frankly I couldn't blame them, we had the best Navy in the world right now, and although sailing wasn't always as fast, it was cheaper then flying.

Steiner marched back in through the door as the ambassadors finally left for their guest rooms. "I can hardly understand what they say my Queen."

"Yes, me too." I sighed.

Beatrix turned and held out her hand to me, "If you'd like my Queen we have some time before dinner, we could head out into the gardens?"

"I'd love that Beatrix, let me go get changed." I accepted her hand and lowered myself out of my mother's old thrown.

Beatrix nodded, and I walked quickly out of the door into the hallway. It was still being renovated from destruction all those years ago, but the large white marble blocks were far more attractive then the gray stones from before. I traced my fingers in the grooves of the stone and then lifted them up whenever I approached a curtain.

It didn't take long for me to change and grab my staff. And before I knew it I was out in the boat being taken across the water to outside of town where the newly created gardens were. They were an extensive construction undertaken by Silvia Rosemeier two years ago. Most of the work had been done by the children of the city, but I doubted there wasn't a person who didn't come out here and look after the flowers at least once a week. I even saw Zidane out here early one morning looking after a small section of lilies.

Beatrix ran her fingers over the petals of carnations next to me as we went through the front entrance. The first arch which lead into the rest of the maze like garden was 10 feet tall with white carnations flowing all over it's sides.

The pathway of the garden was made out of little blue and white pebbles collected from the Ice Cavern. I smiled as they crunched lightly under our feet. A large white rose bush caught my eyes and I plucked a few of the petals off and held them in my hand.

"I love this place." I mutter to Beatrix.

"I do to, sometimes I wish I could stay here forever." She smiled at me, and then frowned. "I wanted to speak to you."

"Oh?"

"Yes." She directed me towards a bench near a cherry tree and we sat down together. "I saw Kuja last night."

"Oh…" I frowned. Again that damned mage was popping up to ruin my life. "Well, yes…"

"I didn't know he was alive, but… You did?"

"Of course I knew! Mikoto was practically forcing me to save his life while she finished fixing whatever the hell was wrong with him, and Zidane… Oh Zidane pulled and pushed, and ahhh." I just stopped feeling the rage build up with in me.

"I see." She sighed and looked out over the hedges across from us. "Garnet. I wish you would have told me."

"Why, so you could slaughter him?" I growled.

She didn't respond.

"Why Beatrix." I pushed again.

"I loved him before things got out of control." She answered me quietly, and I found I could not respond.

"There was a time maybe a year before your father died when I first saw him around the Castle. He wasn't quite as sinister then as he became. He had just earned a huge fortune from the Treno's King and had been invited to one of the Queen's balls." A smile hit Beatrix's lips and I found myself sitting down although I could not remember when I stood. "It was the first time I ever saw him, and he arrived with the King, although neither of them looked like they remotely wanted to be there. I remember for the longest time they sat in the corner of the room chattering randomly between each other." She closed her eyes savoring the memory and I thought back too as Beatrix collected her thoughts.

I could easily remember the pair from the King residence, but somehow the Kuja in that picture wasn't the same as the one who I ended up fighting. He was skinner and younger, and as I remembered it he was sarcastic.

_Most beautiful girl in the kingdom? I can believe that, but would you look at her parents… _

His harsh words towards my mother floated back and I looked back at Beatrix who was still smiling.

"Beatrix." I snapped, and my general pulled herself out of whatever dreamy little memory she was entangled in.

"Oh sorry. Well he was very beautiful, I thought he was a woman at first. And it completely sent him off into a little rant about how General's should learn some respect for their betters. I of course laughed at him and challenged him to a duel. Your mother only encouraged it and made a bet with the King that if I won he could have her crown."

"Oh! I remember this! And the King didn't want to do it, but Kuja said he would. I remember that mother sent me to bed after that."

"Yes well, Kuja didn't want the crown and he argued that he wanted the pendent, but your father wouldn't got for it." She paused again. "So in the end he gave in for the crown. We headed out into the fields in the east of the city to duel. And of course your father didn't come, he thought it was a trivial matter."

"I guess it wouldn't seem that way now."

"No. Well, I took him down in one hit with Chimhazzard."

"What?"

"Yes I know, he waited till I walked back over to make sure he wasn't dead and sent a Blizzaga my way. Then he healed himself and walked over to the Queen and reached out his hand." Beatrix laughed. "Oh course the Queen never handed it over, instead she started to bargain with him on training you to learn some more powerful magic like that."

"She did?"

"Yes, but I never really found out what happened at the end of that." Beatrix replied being startlingly gossipy. "I was quite surprised that he managed to trick me like that. I guess from that day forth I became more and more upset over him loitering around like he owned the castle…" She stopped and glanced over at me. "In some ways that's how he got into her circle, how she ever found out about his power. But it wasn't until after your father died that he actually went around publicly in the castle. Before that it was always covert meetings."

"Oh, as I remember it I didn't see much of him until maybe a month after father died." I ran a hand through my hair and stared out at the garden. "Beatrix, why does it matter to you if he's still alive?"

"I don't know, it just does. Part of me feels as though I should be getting vengeance on him for his crimes, and part of me wants to see him like he was before."

"Did you know him well?" I asked.

"I-- I knew him well enough considering the amount of time he spent working around the Queen. I guess I doesn't really matter now. But, it does change things." She paused as she thought over the information again, it always surprised me about how slow Beatrix could be thinking about things outside of battle. "Who else knows?"

"Zidane, me, Mikoto…" She trailed off thinking back to the time when Zidane had called on her to save his brother's life. "I think Blank, he was one of Zidane's friend's from Tantalus."

Beatrix let out a helpless sigh. "How long has it been I've thought he was dead… Five years?"

"I know, I'm sorry Beatrix. I dislike it more then anyone. You know that, but you also know that I'm doing this for Zidane."

"Zidane, yes, I never quite understood why he went back after Kuja."

"Me neither…"I paused, that wasn't entirely true. "When me and Zidane were in the Black Mage Village during our travels he told me about searching for his home. He told me that he left several times to find his home, left from Baku, and something about the way he said it makes me think that all he ever wanted was a family."

Beatrix nodded and looked up at the sky, a small lazy cloud was drifting by above us.

"We should head out Garnet, after all you said you wanted to get some fighting in."

I laughed, only Beatrix was nice enough to actually sneak me out through the gardens to go fight some monsters. This was most certainly a field trip I would never get hanging around Steiner. Even if I could summon the king of dragons to kick his ass.

Edit: May 18, 2008


	3. Oeilvert’s secrets

Kuja

Chapter One: Oeilvert's secrets

Kuja

I paced back and forth across the bridge of the _Amadeo _which happened to be one of Cid's newest non-mist ships. It had an amazing pearly white deck, and light blue chrome paint which blended it into the clouds so easily, and I often thought that other ships might not see her. Unlike her larger sisters, she could only carry four passengers, and no more then 4 tons of cargo. Yet I found myself in love with her non the less, as she had highly decorative rooms and could be flown solo.

The book Zidane had given me to read was a complete crock, stupid and poorly written to the last page. And while I had managed to read through all of those poor pages, I no longer agreed with his opinion that my salvation lay there. It was a pity that I had come to depend upon my younger bother so, I felt guilty now with the amount of effort he had taken to right things.

Now I took flight to Oeilvert, which I knew was currently occupied by some of Queen Garnet's henchmen. The leaders of Garnet's band were the overly breasted Lani and her new companion Serais, a delicate looking mage with magic to equal the Queen's. And of course I happened to be at a fair disadvantage as my own personal abilities lay with magic, which happened to be useless there.

Lucky it also made Serais useless as well.

The Amadeo's tracking system beeped impatiently at me and I found myself using a mental connection I'd build into the ship to shut the noise off. We'd reached the cliffs not more then 18 miles from where Oeilvert lay. I shuffled my way over to the window looking out on the enormous cliffs and the tiny archaic structure. Just outside of the building lay a moderately sized airship that happened to be suspended off the ground slightly as it was too treacherous to land there. I focused my mind slightly allowing it to reinforce the ships sensors, and then sent out a scan of the area below. Instantly I could feel the mage Serais inside the ship. She happened to be alone. Lani I could not feel which made me consider that she must have been in the depths of the structure, and a few Alexandrian soldiers were calmly pacing outside the building.

I sighed and came back into my body again, looking over the information that popped up on one of the ship's screens. It read back to me exactly what I had just determined, and a little something extra. There was a pair of moogles in the tiny structure's ground level.

I yawned and ordered the ship to land on the surface of the plateau we hovered over, and headed back to my room. There I dug out a pair of black pants, a black vest with throwing knives and long silky gloves which had a Mythril lace on the outside of them. I stared down at the large pile of shoes I just happened to have amassed on my last trip to Treno. A silver and black leather pair seemed ideal for this particular mission and I slipped them on. Hanging on the wall I noticed one of Zidane's old sets of daggers which he had given me to practice with. They hardly seemed practical, and I went for the more delicate and slight rapier.

I then rummaged through the top drawer of my bed stand and pulled out the leather face mask which had feathers of my late silver dragon implanted about the edges. I clipped it to my face and turned back to stare at myself in the mirror.

I hated the mask perhaps more then anything else I happened to own now, but it was a necessary precaution. And even though it had not been Zidane's idea, I still loathed my little brother for insisting upon my identity remaining confidential.

Oh how much better life would be if I didn't need to insure that Terra's technology remained safe from these foolish Gaian's. I also needed some of the wonderful databases which remained locked away safe in the mainframe of Oeilvert's system, and perhaps I had also come for the Portalists. Some of the eighteen rocks which were known to create portals through space instantly. I'd never told anyone about these, and luckily Garland took their secrete to the grave. Mikoto for all her vast knowledge about the rocks never knew that four of them had been relocated to Gaia for emergency circumstances. And I hadn't used them years ago when I'd sent Zidane on the chase for the Glug Stone because I worried he might use them to travel where he pleased.

I used one to create the portal into Memoria, but at that time everyone found me to be so immensely powerful that they completely believed I could create portals to other dimensions.

Even Mikoto believed that Memoria had been completely my own handy work.

But she was a silly little girl who couldn't use magic herself.

I sighed and sheathed the rapier on my side and wistfully headed out to the bridge of the ship to wait for nightfall.

Lani

"Oh you fucking retards, that's delicate!" I screamed at some more of the pluto knights which just happened to be oblivious to the fact that the face they were carting away was slipping off their cart.

"Sorry…" One of them murmured before jumping about to fix the situation.

I glared at them all wishing that Serais wasn't such as wimp. If she'd just learn how to hold a friggin spear then she could come down here and help out, but nooooo, she had to be so clumsy and weak that she couldn't handle that. Freaking mages always are helpless as kittens without their magic. And the more powerful they get the less they know about actual fighting.

Therefore today was looking as if it would suck just as much as most days.

That or it would suck like every day sucked since the beginning of time.

Oh lord how things sucked.

Sucking with the suckers.

"Suck, suck, friggity suck…"

A clatter from beside me caused me to jump and start screaming at some more Alexandrian soldiers, the blond babes just looked at me a little blankly before fixing the face they were carting off as well.

We moved out half the faces in that room, most of which were damaged, but Garnet had wanted every single piece. Even the scraps on the floor were carted out slowly by two of the dumbest pluto knights ever to walk the planet… more like the universe actually.

I ended up leaving just before the idiots were allowed to end for the night, and went off hunting through the maze for some monsters to take my aggression out on.

I found a few Orge's and they fell over with a few hits although one of them kept using the trouble knife on me which just pissed the hell out of me because I ended up curing it every time. And then just as I was finishing up a Garuda I noticed a figure with a slight body and silvery hair moving across one of the floors above me. I watch for a moment, a slight dread building up inside of me. There shouldn't be anyone down here because the guards were up top, and they'd never let anyone Garnet hadn't approved down here.

I looked about for a more direct way up onto the man's level and saw a pair of stairs around a corner to my right. Dashing for those I made my way up to his level and then looked about.

He was gone just like that.

I paced down the stone floor and then back up again.

Not more then twenty feet in the other direction there was a large wall, no doors between the steps I'd come up and the wall though.

"Wait a sec!" I barked, and hurried back towards the wall. I examined the wall closely and noticed a slight crease running in-between the rocks in the shape of a door. I knew there was no way those ancient Terran's would have built a stairway to nowhere. So I started to press in on different rocks, none of them budged. I tried to press rocks in a formation, I tried turning and pulling and every other method I could.

At last I sighed and gave in. The door might only open for Zidane, just as most of these old passage ways did. Which meant I'd need to get Lumos down here tomorrow to try and open the door. After all the guy was a genome, it ought to work for him.

Yawning slightly I moved down away from the door and back through the maze which lead out of decaying structure.

It was then that a thought hit me.

There had only ever been one genome with silver hair.

And I stopped dead in my tracks realizing whom I had seen.

Blank

I watched as Zidane stood idly maneuvering the Invincible about through the traffic of Lindblum. He seemed moderately distracted by something, as he kept on getting a little to close to some of the poor smaller ships. I figured he was probably engrossed in conversing with Mikoto or someone like that. God forbid he was talking to Kuja again, the fact that Zidane seemed to idolize his older brother always bothered me in the back of my mind.

"Hey! Zidane knock it off you almost took out that ship!" I yelled as the Invincible just scrapped past a cruse liner called the Sylvia.

"Sorry," he murmured to be before paying attention to his driving and safely landing the Invincible in it's own personal hanger in one of the many airship docks which were built almost a five miles away from the actual castle. From there we hopped into the one of the new buggies that ranged out to the airship docks.

"Yeah sorry about the flying I was talking with Kuja again." He said a little ashamed about himself.

I shrugged and tried not to give him any hints that it bothered me.

"Hey ya know I think I've got Dagger picking up on this mind speech thing, she's not really able to… erm… contact me first though. You know it's like I've got to send her a message first before she can start sending anything back."

"No way? Man you ought to show me how to do that." I said grinning, and hoping that maybe if he could talk to Garnet he'd lay off talking to his brother.

"I'm not sure it'd work with you. No offense but you haven't ever been good at magic, and it seems like that a key in doing this."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah."

"You ever try it with Vivi?" I asked.

"Naw, but I should, I know him and Mikoto speak like this some times."

"Oh really, so how's crazy doing anyway?"

Zidane snorted at my nick name for his little sister. "She's alright. I think she's staying in the Desert Palace since she's been reading up on all this old Terran crap." He shrugged at me and rested his face on his gloved hand. I looked over his attire, nothing too different from the usual. Blue jeans, a white vest with a long sleeved blue undershirt. And a pair of white leather gloves with some frilly stuff for trim.

"I thought she was like a computer and already knew all that."

"Well for Terra yeah, but she told me she's been looking into things that Garland documented about Gaia. Ya know he has all this information about Ipsen's Castle and how these King's used to rule it proclaiming divine intervention when the mirrors would glow when they touched them?"

"Don't they glow for everyone?"

"Yeah but the King would say that it only glowed because he was on the throne, and when ever someone would try and murder a King he's steal one of the mirrors so that the wall face would stop glowing."

"Damn, people were confused back then."

"Oi, there's a lot of information that I gave Dagger a while back concerning her home town Madain Sari. There was a lot in the book Garland wrote about it. He even talked about all the summons that they ever discovered. It was really amazing. Kuja told me that's why he went after the Garnet rather then Eiko, since he knew Alexander was hers." Zidane explained to me as he thought over some of the things he'd read himself from that book.

The buggy came to a stop and we wondered out into the business district and up towards one of the new restaurants built after the destruction. The one Zidane lead me too was called The Hero, which I found slightly ironic.

"Yeah, yeah…" He said as we entered and one of the waitresses greeted Zidane and took us over to a nice booth. "But you know I get free food for coming here, they said it makes them more popular if I show up every once and a while."

"I'll believe that!" I said grinning and then scooped up one of the menus. "The hell?!" I said as I saw what all of the dishes were called. "Zidane's Ulitma Weapon, a spicy pasta dish with Ulitma kick?"

"Read Dagger's!" He said grinning at me.

I looked down and spotted it just under Zidane's. "Queen's Eidolon soup? That just makes me feel bad for the Eidolons, or the people who eat that."

"Then there's Carol Salad, a tasty salad with butterfly wings and summoner horn shaped croutons. Vivi's is Black Mage Cereal, it's got all these little black mage hats and little black chocolate things with yellow dots on them…. I think those are suposta to be his face, and it has his Octagon Staff thinger in there as well. And Coral Assassin Filet, which is some random grilled fish. Crescent Cake and Sir Rusty Morning Toast. Then if you look at the drinks…" Zidane said flipping his menu over. "You've got Mechanical Menace Garland, which has two shots of that black Burmecian liquor and three cherries in the center. Flame Star which is White Alexandrian wine mixed with orange juice and a cherry. The Desert Palace which has Daguerreo Spirits, that weird looking purple stuff, and strawberries mixed into sand at the bottom."

I looked down at the rest of the list noticing suddenly that I had a drink named after myself. "Hey! Petrified Blank, two shots of Conde Petie Santo and Evil Forest Ale."

"Yeah, they interviewed me and Amarant and… Eiko to get the details for coming up with all sorts of specific stuff."

"Whoa." I scanned over the drinks again noticing a One Eyed Master, which actually contained the eye of a lizard, and The Henchman's Axe, which had a tiny miniature axe that was a perfect replica of Lani's own axe.

"Mikoto's Brethren is really good." Zidane mentioned looking up towards me. "It's a basket of chicken strips with a honey mustard and ranch sauce. It's suposta symbolize me and Kuja."

"Weird. Whatcha going to get?"

"The Doomsday Surprise, it's actually BBQ ribs with this extra spicy black pepper sauce."

"Alright…" I glanced down the menu again trying to sort out what didn't sound disgusting and found the Grilled Iifa Tree. Which had all these pieces of grilled broccoli stuck together with cheese to form the Iifa Tree. "So… what's a good side dish?"

"I like the Black mage tots, they're shaped like little mages and you get em with this tomato sauce. Or you could get the Choco Toasters, which are little pieces of bread shaped like chocobos and it comes with that honey mustard stuff."

I nodded and decided to go with the mages as a side. Zidane waved down one of the waitresses who had her hair styled like Eiko's and wore a fake horn on her head. "How can I help you Zidane?" She said a little bit to flirtatiously for a guy everyone knew was married to the Queen.

"Yeah, I'm getting the Doomsday Surprise with a side of Choco Toasters and a Terra Mixer."

"Alright, and for you Sir?" She said turning to me.

"Grilled Iifa Tree with a side of Black mage tots and a Petrified Blank." I said grinning at Zidane, he attempted not to laugh back.

"Righto, I'll have those out to you boys in justa second." She said before bouncing off.

I watched her for a moment, and then looked back over at Zidane. "I always wondered how I tasted petrified."

He burst into laughter.

Kuja

I brushed my hands over the panel and attempted to get the generator attached to the main database back online. I was in a large command type room with barely surviving Terran technology surrounding me. Vine like wires looped about the walls lazily and large eyeball like windows glanced out onto different levels of Oeilvert. The main panel before me looked quite tree like in the way that the main buttons branched out from a central screen, and the wires connecting it to the rest of Oeilvert looked like roots.

It amused me vaguely that the Terrians who'd lost all plant life had tried desperately to make their technology reflect nature.

I noted that the main generator was still at 40 function, but the one connected to the main database had malfunctioned thousands of years ago. Most likely something in the earth's surface had shifted to block it's view of the sun, inevitably causing the generator to fail.

I bungled over a few more buttons and then noticed that there were four storage levels to this ancient facility. One of them had already been breached by Lani's little team, yet the other three were secure and undiscovered. I cast the eyeball to my left on a scan of the area from command room to the tiny doorway which secured the first storage level. Sure enough I saw a pair of Alexandrian guards who were happily pacing back and forth training against some dumb monsters. However I didn't quite expect to see Lani standing directly outside the door from which I had entered. She was inspecting the wall with a certain amount of fervor, and keep trying to press in stones or turn them. Laughed a little as she became more and more frustrated about the task.

Yet finally she stomped off presumably to attempt another method for opening the doorway.

I had sensed a genome on the second floor, so it was reasonable that she would snatch him up to open the door for her.

I sighed and entered in a command that this particular genome was to be excluded from entry at any doorway which he had not already visited.

The computer accepted dully and I headed out of the command room to wonder off towards the first storage level. I turned through a series of moderately maze like passageways and then down onto a slider as I preferred to call them. It set up an anti wind barrier and then slid down in a circular motion towards the first storage level. The circular block stopped rather stiffly sending me slightly off balance. I growled at the malfunction and headed through the passageway before me.

The room was full of engine parts that Cid would die for.

It was now becoming apparent to me that I'd need a nice little team of my own if I were to relocate any of this machinery. And I couldn't afford to have that happen since I need to remain "confidential". I slammed my head into the doorway beside me and started to look through the machinery. A small magical time field had prevented this room from aging, however once I opened the door the field shut down. Most likely it wouldn't be turning on again unless I redid the field myself, and forced the computer to take over the operation of the magic.

I sneezed slightly as a light layer of dust started to build up in the air from my movements. And finally I noticed something I hadn't expected to see at all. There were several doors leading off of this room. I headed for the first one and pressed it open. The other side was littered with weapons.

Not the sort of weapons a single person goes about using. These were the weapons of nations.

These were nuclear warheads, stationed about on little platforms, all with little computer terminals attached to them.

I approached the first of them and the little terminal sparked to life, ready and waiting for me to type in the access code to dismantle the barrier around the warhead.

I sighed with relief at knowing that the access codes would have been in Pandemonium, which I had destroyed.

"Well at least something good came out of that." I murmured to myself. And started back towards the other room.

I spent the night looking through the three undiscovered levels of storage, and rigged the slider which went all the way down to the level where the Gulug stone was kept to remain unresponsive to anyone but myself and Zidane. I then by passed some more security codes to ensure that the front doors themselves would now remain unresponsive to anyone but a genome.

That ought to almost halt Lani's current project of taking the faces from the Room of Inquiry away, and should prevent her from doing any more exploring.

The first room had mostly machinery for large Invincible type battle ships. It also had the regular weapons that you could connect to the ships, such as the nukes and some torpedoes ranging from slight class to mega. The second level, which happened to be the one which Lani broke into, contained mainly document crystals and a few databases, but the magic field in this room had fail almost two hundred years before. So there would be little if any information they'd receive even from the crystals.

The third level held regular transport vehicles including one of the most beautiful cars that the Terrians perhaps ever created. While the fourth level held the stones and the knowledge of the ancients. There were mainly crystals in here, each relating information about a single magic spell. There were also sealed magic stones that explained the lack of anyone's ability to use magic here. I sighed and pondered just dismantling the stones. But because of Lani's little mage companion I decided against it, she would after all, be able to sense me quite easily if the seals were to be taken down.

Around four in the morning I found myself getting sleepy and headed back up to the main floor, where I watched the Alexandrian guards sleeping on duty and slipped out one of the numerous holes in the walls. I ordered the Amadeo to drop back down next to the cliff and entered the tiny ship before leaving the ground behind for some cliffs about two miles away where I'd leave the airship to perch out of sight during the day.

Edit: May 18, 2008


	4. The Truth

The Truth of It All

The Truth

Mikoto

I glanced back and forth between the first volume and the second. It was certainly Garland's writing in these books. Their text was in ancient Terran, a form of literature I'd never bothered to master, although I definitely could make out some of the text.

_Hidden deep within the -- below the city of -- is a great amount of power from Old Terra. Each of the many nations sent the greatest -- to be stored on Gaia once it's -- surface cooled. _

I leafed back over this passage attempting to reach a higher understanding, but came to none. Thus I set the book back upon my lap and puzzled over what could lay beneath this city. It seemed strange that the Old Terran's would have sent their greatest items to be protected and kept on Gaia.

I reached out with my mind and found that I could not sense Kuja. Instantly I sat up, worried by the loss of connection to my brother.

_Zidane?!_

_Mikoto? _

_Kuja, something's happened I can't sense him! _

_Um… _There was a prolonged pause as Zidane attempted to reach his brother as well. _Your right. _

_That means he's dead Zidane! _

_Didn't know you were that concerned…? _

_He's my brother, I should be just as concerned as you! _

_Oh, well then you'll be happy to know that he's only flying over the forgotten continent, that place has a magic barrier around it. A Terran magic barrier actually, that's why you can't sense him._

_Oh…_

_Yeah, so don't worry about it. _Zidane's charming voice left me with all the comfort I could possibly need, and so I turned back towards the books. It was then that a little thought sprung up into my mind.

"I wonder if the old ones would have went about putting that city in an anti-magic barrier." I told the thought to the emptiness of the palace, and went back to my attempted reading.

_A newer complex was added in 3196 in order to store results of the ComPsIV project. _

That phrase was easy enough to read, but Garland had never mentioned the ComPsIV project before. In fact I doubted that I'd ever heard of it before. It certainly wasn't in the main database, I'd memorized all the projects in that particular database.

And that date? Almost four hundred Terran years had passed since then.

"Hun." I stated to myself, and sat the book aside so that I might notify Kuja of this, in all likely hood he'd know something of it.

Lumos

Lani had been yelling at me for the past three minutes, I dully ignored her sentiments, and rather focused on what had caused this little issue with the doors in the first place.

However, I knew far less then Lani did as to what caused the problem.

In her yelling I caught her mention of another genome, one with platinum hair, lurking about the city.

I was not such a fool as to immediately believe that it was Kuja whom lurked about these halls though. There were a total of 13 genomes who were roaming outside of the village, and it was possible that one of them had disguised themselves as Kuja in an effort to gain some of the Terran technology for themselves. They could easily have found the central control room and changed the codes for the doors, they might even have unlocked some of the other storage rooms we had yet to uncover. Assuming they contained that particular knowledge before our leaving Terra.

There were many genomes who were created far before I and who contained more information then I. This would surely give them a head start against me. Or perhaps enable them to drive me out of the search. This was the most likely possibility. Kuja had died.

What I couldn't understand is why any of them would want to go against Zidane.

He was as much our father or leader as Garland had ever been. To ignore what he had done for us and this world would be foolish. Not to mention he was far stronger then any of us could be, impossible for us to defeat the prototype.

"Damnit! Lumos are you even listening to me!?" Lani yelled.

"Of course I am." I replied flatly.

"Well then come on, we need these doors opened now!"

"I'm afraid that I do not know how to fix them, we have yet to find the control room after all."

"I know you moron, but I saw _him_ go into it! So obviously I know where it is, now lets go!"

I started at realizing that Lani must have seen this genome when he was headed towards the control room. Perhaps her extensive training in bounty hunter had benefited her for this mission. Giving up on the door I followed her through the maze like world below the surface. It seemed to take a great deal of time. I wondered if perhaps she was lost, and then finally we approached a dead end.

"There's nothing here." I stated.

"Alright genome, time you learn something." She stated irritably. "Now look at this." She wiggled her finger at me and I approached the wall. She pointed to a crack that ran straight up, and then curved, and ran straight back down. I stepped back slightly and noticed that it perfectly formed a door.

"A door?" I queried.

"Of course! Now open it!"

I knitted my brows in concentration, but the door didn't budge. I reached out to touch it, and nothing happened. It wasn't a door, just a neatly formed crack, a trick that the other genome most likely put in place to distract Lani.

"It will not open." I stated. "And I do not believe that this is a door."

"What? Why!?"

"No other doors in this place are so hidden, they are all open to see. Terrain's had no need of hiding things in such a way, their technology is so advanced that it was not necessary." After giving my explanation I headed back in the other direction.

Lani kicked the door twice and growled at it quite firmly. And then followed me hesitantly away from the wall. "Wait!"

I turned about half way down the steps.

"The stairs!" She said.

I looked at them, uncomprehending.

"You knucklehead! They lead to nothing? There isn't anything up here except that door, so…!"

I finally put two and two together and smiled at Lani's impressive deduction. "They must lead to a door, you are right no terra would make a stairway for no reason."

"Hahaa!" She laughed at me and then crossed her arms, "So open it?"

"I can not." I replied again and stalked off back the way we'd come. Behind me I heard Lani furiously drive her axe against the stone.

I rolled the idea of a hidden door around in my mind as we walked. "Perhaps, it was a doorway, and this other genome disguised it a while back, maybe before we even came here."

"It would help prevent any genome from finding it." She stated. "And as a genome themselves they'd know this. You know Kuja was especially tricky about things like that. I saw his palace, he had all sorts of secret passageways and hidden doors in it."

"Kuja is dead." I stated. "It's completely impossible for him to have survived the genetic defect which Garland passed on to him."

"Are you sure?"

"In order to survive he'd need Terran technology equal or greater then what is here. And even if he had it, no one would have helped him to save himself."

"Except Zidane." She reminded him.

"Zidane would not know how to work that sort of technology."

"Okay, what about Mikoto?"

"Mikoto would never have agreed, she loved our father Garland to much, and she loved Terra too much."

Lani sighed and shook her head. "Do you know what time it is?" She asked after a minute.

"About four in the morning."

"Whoa, I suppose we should get some sleep."

"That would be nice." I stated, and pressed my hand against the front door to open it. Lani headed out, but I paused. "I think I will go look back at that door again." I stated, not really feeling tired.

"Sure, just take this with you." She said tossing me her bag of high potions.

I nodded to her and headed back, when I thought I heard a soft clicking of steps from a few corners away. I quickly jumped in behind the left over rubble and wrapped my dark cloak about my body. It was a navy blue and should match the rubble almost perfectly. I threw the hood over my head and then waited.

Sure enough a masked person wearing black came out from the doorway that was opposite to me. The mask he wore was made of bleached leather with feathers placed about the sides, and he wore leather pants and a leather vest.

Lani was not mistaken when she said that this genome has silver hair. She was not mistaken when she stated that the genome was Kuja either.

I could tell by the cat like walk and certain amount of felicity with which this person moved. How many times had I seen Kuja before, seen him wonder about Terra when he was just a new creation, see him marvel at my soulless tone? I had seen him age, seen him tortured by Garland, seen him destroy my home with magic beyond my own dreams.

And now he was here, walking passed me not two paces away, and heading towards a large amount of rubble at the other side of the structure.

I stared frozen in awe and fear at the Angel of Death.

At last he passed beyond the rubble and disappeared like some mythic apparition. I turned, feeling sick now, and headed back out the main door. Lani was almost at the airship and I yelled out to her. She turned looking back up at me curiously. And I dashed down to tell her she had been right all along.

Lani

Lumos was white, not white like he never got out to tan, but white liked he'd seen a ghost.

I started at him as he suddenly said.

"Your right, it's Kuja, it has to be, it's Kuja."

"What?" I asked annoyed at his senseless speech.

"I saw him, coming up from the other side of Oeilvert's halls. It was him, I know it, it walked like him, it looked like him…" Lumos shook his head franticly and shivered slightly.

"Come on, let's get on the ship, we're going back to Alexandria to speak with Garnet and Zidane." I said determined to get to the bottom of this.

"Are you sure that's a good idea? I mean what if they already know he's alive, of course Zidane knows he's alive. Hell, he'll just wipe our memory."

"Not necessarily. Besides why would Zidane send him here to mess with what were doing? He wouldn't do that. So more then likely Zidane doesn't know Kuja's been hiding out here, he needs to know, he's probably the only one who can stop his brother if there's something going on."

"Ah…"

"Well fine, you got a better idea?!" I yelled at him panicking a little.

"Ah, well…. I think we should attempt to find out what he's doing. Besides, he's a mage correct?" Lumos stated. "You said that he'd never bothered to take any physical combat lessons here on Gaia, and I know he never learned any on Terra."

"That doesn't mean he hasn't learned recently." I stated, not liking where this was going.

"But even then he can't be a very good fighter, if you and I were to corner him…"

"He might have control over the doors in there, he could lock us in somewhere." No this wasn't where I wanted to go at all.

"Listen, Lumos. I know it doesn't sound like a good idea, but I don't think we've got a choice! Zidane wasn't alone when he took out his brother, he had a lot of help, and none of them at quite as powerful as they used to be. Lets face it, if Kuja's alive then that means that Mikoto knows about it, and was the one of to save him. But she could never have done that on her own. She doesn't know magic, and they would have needed a healer of some sort. So Garnet must be in on this plot as well. And I more then likely a few more of the Heroes know about him as well." He paused for a moment thinking things over. "Vivi would have to know if Mikoto knows, Zidane would never keep things from Tantalus, and Garnet might as well have told Beatrix or Steiner." He started to pace back and forth.

"I see." A though striking him, "Damn! You know I have reason to believe that some of Terra's most powerful weapons might be beneath this city."

"What do you mean?" I asked, thinking that Kuja was enough of a weapon by himself.

"I mean that, back on Terra, a lot of destruction was caused by powerful bombs that destroyed cities. They were called nuclear weapons. That's one of the main reasons why Terra died. The flora and fauna were contaminated by the poison of these weapons, and nothing would grow."

I stared at him. "Does Zidane and Garnet know of these weapons?"

"I can only assume they do, and that's why they wanted me to recover them. I believe Zidane said he wanted to relocate all of the old technology. And at least I believe that was a slight reference to those weapons. But he might not even know they existed. I'm not even sure if they exist here or not."

"I guess your right."

"I saw where he came in, I believe our best bet is to wait till he enters the city again tonight and then hunt down after him."

I nodded, not wanting to really be forced to confront Kuja at all. But with out his magic we at least stood a chance.

Kuja

Alright, so this was annoying. I came back to find that Lani had not only decided to station guards around the entire city, but she'd also seemed to have sent off the shipment she had of the faces to Garnet. It rather pissed me off to have to wait till some poor monster distracted a pair of guards long enough to let me sneak in.

Oh and then, Lani and her little genome started to stalk me about. I ditched them three times, only to have them bust down two doors which I'd set to not open, and circumvent the third.

I mean who the hell bothers trying to catch me? For crying out loud, didn't they get the point?

A crash from above said that Lani was trying to break down another door using some dynamite. The sad thing was that I hadn't even bothered to lock that door to her friend yet.

Then it occurred to me that perhaps I ought to check with the system to see where Lani and her friend were even at.

Sure enough one of them was not twenty feet in front of my path going up a set of stairs, and other not more then a single corner behind me.

That meant I'd have to fight them, or jump off this balcony edge which didn't look like there was anything to land on below.

Lani came around the bend in front of me and readied her axe. "Who are you, and what have you been doing?" She demanded somewhat courageously. I stared her down and then noticed the rush of foot steps behind me. Pulling out my rapier I flicked it behind my back, and then twisted around just as Zidane had shown me a few months back. The genome's own slim sword clashed against mine, I twisted my rapier about it and then with a flick of my hand sent the sword over the edge. Then grabbing his collar and spinning him around so as to use him as a shield against Lani, I took off.

Lani let out a scream and I heard the genome cry out. She mustn't have been unable to stop her axe from swinging down on him.

Oh well, at least it meant they wouldn't be able to get in my way for a while.

I dashed past two more doors, locking them both as I crossed through them. Quite suddenly found myself slipping through a wall.

_What?_

It was dark, horribly dark, and there was an eerie bubbling sound rising up from behind me. I stared for a moment at the wall I had just slipped through.

Tentatively I touched it and found that my hand moved through it easily. Just like air in fact.

I blinked and touched into the system to find out what this particular oddity was. The computer countered by stating that this was an Isolation Room, blocked off and disguised by holographic technology. The computer also notified me that this room was not part of the original city plans, and had been created a total of four hundred years ago by Garland.

I blinked again suddenly feeling quite confused. Nothing of this room had ever been mentioned anywhere I had ever looked.

I queued the computer to turn on whatever power source and light source the room contained. It readily complied and instantly the lights flickered on. They gave off a dim blue hue that looked identical to that which could be found everywhere on Terra.

And once my eyes adjusted to the brightness of the light I suddenly understood why nothing of this room had ever been mentioned.

Cloning tubes lined the walls. Most of them had shut down ages ago. The deformed and decayed bodies of what had once been Terra's last living people were highlighted inside their glass cages.

I stepped back in shock as I looked at one of the still bubbling green colored liquid containers. Inside rested a clawed and mis-formed creature. It's pearl like eyes remained open and unblinking as was typical of stasis.

Below each of the containers were little blipping computer screens. I approached the first and keyed in my inquiry as to what the creature was. The tiny screen informed me that this was Lord Vertalio ruler of the Gysia District.

I looked back up at his poor deformed body. Long sliver hair and claw like hands weren't his only defect; A pair of long cord like branches sprouted from his back and his feet were misshapen into something more similar to a bird's claws.

I stepped back and looked about the room. The others had not been so mutated, and most of the others were no longer living.

I keyed the computer system and paused as it blipped back that the only other living person here was a woman by the name of CisLia, and as I looked at her tube I noted that she too had suffered some mutations, although nothing quite so serious.

I wondered briefly if they would even survive outside of their little tubes.

The next thing I knew I was flying into CisLia's strange blue tube.

Lani

Lumos gripped his shoulder tightly as we finally blew open the final door. He was bleeding rather heavily from where my axe had missed and hit his shoulder. I felt awful for allowing this to happen to him, but there wasn't any help for it now, and considering that we only had a single high potion with us now…

"Come on." I said softly to him

He nodded, and then weakly said. "Sure…"

Poor guy looked ready to faint.

We stumbled along through the pieces of the blown through door and then Lumos tripped and fell over into a wall.

And then he was gone.

Just like that, one moment I was watching him fall over and then next he was gone.

I blinked and wondered if maybe he'd teleported.

I waited for a moment, touched the wall, felt the hard cold stone beneath my finger tips and then wondered back on my way towards the surface.

Completely confused for the entire trip.

And there was also this tickling little cold feeling that started to creep up my back, as though someone were watching me.

AN: Whoot! Enter the Anomalies!

You didn't really think I'd write a fan fic with out having some sort of OCs in it, did you? So yep, next chapter we will visit with Ziddy and friends, and the big secret that Zidane has been keeping will finally get out. Of course not before Lani shows up screaming her head off about the end of days.

Edit: May 18, 2008


	5. Lucky Day

Your Lucky Day

Your Lucky Day

Beatrix

I happened to be watching Garnet polish off her nails on that particular day. Our Queen could almost always amuse herself while waiting for dignitaries by doing simple things like that. It made me adore her like an older sister would.

I however never had Garnet's patience, I could not amuse myself by clipping spilt ends from my hair or by rounding out the corners of my finger nails.

About the only thing I could manage to do was dreaming.

I'd think usually about what might have happened to me should I have plunged off the cliff when I was eleven and there had been no Amber there to grab my arm. I'd day dream about my first love Coil, and how he used to give me sly glances from across the training arena. I'd day dream about Zidane and his little group, and what might have happened should I have killed them when I encountered them in Bermecia.

At the time I had highly regretted not killing them. But the day before Kuja had made an off hand comment about me being a blood thirsty little general, and how only seeing death made me happy. So I had refrained, and allowed the group of four to live. And now that I look back on it, if Kuja had never made that comment, I would never have spared their lives, and more then likely Kuja would have destroyed both Gaia and Terra by now.

Funny how things like that worked out.

"Beatrix? I think those emissaries from Treno are here."

"Of course my lady." I replied walking over to the door and opening it.

I hardly expected to see Zidane, along with an overly confused Vivi and Amarant standing there.

After a moment I noticed that Lani, who looked drastically upset, was standing behind them.

"We need to talk with Garnet, your free to stay so long as you don't repeat anything to Steiner." Zidane stated in one of the most commanding tones I'd ever heard out of him.

I instantaneously stepped aside and allowed Zidane and his little group through.

Garnet had forgotten her nail file and was standing now, walking gracefully over to the group. "What's wrong?" She asked cocking her head to the side.

"Kuja." Zidane stated instantly.

"What about him?" Her eyes grew cross instantly.

"That freak has been wondering about Oeilvert for the past few days, not only disturbing all of our research, but I think he kidnapped Lumos!" She said with a great amount of rage in her voice.

"Zidane?" Garnet asked instantly.

But before he could reply Lani burst in with. "Tell her about the Nukes!"

"Nukes?"

"They're really powerful weapons from old Terra, about as powerful as Bahamut." He stated carefully.

Garnet blinked, paused, and then shoved past her beloved Zidane, waved a hand at me, and forcefully headed out the doors.

"Oh shit." Zidane said from behind me as I followed the Queen towards where the new airship dock was. I found her yelling at a few poor men to get the Red Rose prepared for take off.

I'd always been fond of the ship, and with the new renovations which Cid has done for Garnet a year ago, the Red Rose happened to be one of the most luxurious and powerful in the skies.

Zidane, Vivi, Amarant and Lani all creeped onto the ship following me. Garnet waited till the ship was safely in the air, and headed towards its destination before grabbing Zidane and dragging him off.

"Poor guy." Amarant said looking after him. "He really should have let Kuja kick the bucket, guess this is the price he pays for being so virtuous."

Amarant wondered over towards the railing, crossed his arms, and watched thoughtfully over the side of the ship as we passed over the Alexandrian Range.

Lani joined him after a moment or two, they spoke quietly to each other.

That left me with Vivi, who looked up at me rather curiously.

"I didn't know Zidane finally told you." He stated.

I smiled. "I happened to be so fortunate as to run into Kuja a while back. And I suppose they could no longer hide it from me after that."

Vivi fixed his hat firmly onto his head, and then said. "I know a lot of people are upset with him still being alive. But when I saw him last year, I thought that he really had changed. And it wasn't just how he acted either, it was how he felt too."

"Hm…" I deliberated over that for a moment. Sure when I had first met Kuja he'd felt fairly stable, but over the years he'd slowly become more and more vile feeling. I'd always assumed that somehow the mist was contaminating him. "When I first met Kuja he reminded me more of how Zidane is now."

"I think that Kuja feels like Mikoto and Zidane. But neither of them feel like him." Vivi's little eyes glowed up at me and he wondered over to the side of the railing to look down at some of the snow filled mountains.

"I wonder then what he's doing in Oeilvert…" I thought out loud.

"Something Zidane said, makes me think that Kuja was trying to protect Oeilvert from Lani ever finding anything. Mikoto talked to me and told me that there's supposed to be a lot of Terran technology in Oeilvert, stuff that should never be used on Gaia."

"When did you talk to Mikoto?" I asked, a little curious.

"Right after I heard, I can talk with her the same way Zidane can." He adjusted his hat again and glanced over at me. "Most Genomes and Black Mages can do it almost naturally. And Garnet can sorta do it with Zidane."

I nodded and looked into the distance where I could see a tinge of blue starting to appear. Vivi and I watched the ocean and talked about Kuja while the day passed. I noticed near evening Garnet reappeared with Zidane in tough. She seemed to have clamed down, although Lani still acted highly concerned. Amarant cleaned his fighting claws and Zidane sat near by him for a time, fiddling with the Terran technology which made up his Ultimate Weapon.

I looked back down at the ocean and almost jumped when the sea below me changed from a light blue to a dusty red.

We'd be making it to Oeilvert around midnight according to one of the pilots.

And for my own sake I headed back towards my usual cabin on the ship, and allowed myself some sleep.

Garnet

I slumped back against the wall worriedly. Zidane believed that his brother had gone there to protect these weapons, or at the least keep someone like Lani away from them.

I could see that, it made sense given Kuja's **recent** history.

But I could also see him starting a war against all of us. I could see him using those weapons him self, or even selling them to someone like he had my mother. Wasn't that his nature?

Zidane had listen quite patiently to me and my concerns while I'd rattled off my worries to him. However he's stayed strong, and hadn't wavered at all on the issue. I clutched my hand onto the front of my light blue shirt and leaned over.

Alexander, I was worried.

With Kuja still alive I was always worried.

And some of these worries were things that I could never speak to Zidane. I couldn't tell anyone how much I dreamed of having the reborn Alexander rise from earth before me and destroy Kuja. I couldn't tell anyone but Eiko how the Edilions sent me dreams. How they showed me in my dreams that Kuja's time had come.

I stroked away a tear and then headed for the front railing of the airship's deck. I shook my head and closed my eyes. This unnerving tension was starting to clamp down on my heart. It felt like someone had taken their hand and tried to crush me.

I closed my eyes trying to keep the tension away.

"Dagger?" I heard Vivi's voice ask, I looked down at the adorable little mage.

"Yes Vivi?"

"I feel it too." He said, and for a moment I wasn't sure what he was talking about. "The pressure. The feeling like someone is trying to crush my soul. I've felt it ever since dawn."

"Why?" I asked.

"I'm not sure, but I think something has gone wrong, really wrong."

I clutched my pendant in my hands and looked back over the red earth. "If he intends to use those weapons…"

"No, I don't think it's Kuja, I think that it's something else. I think it's something in Oeilvert though." He paused and then wondered over to Zidane, and asked him if he felt anything. I saw Zidane shake his head, but Amarant spoke up and stated, along with Lani, that they felt something.

Vivi stepped back and nodded. Momentarily I saw both him Zidane focus. A few seconds later they both said.

"Nope."

"Hun?" Lani asked.

"Mikoto and the other genomes don't feel any of the pressure."

Vivi sighed, I looked down at the dust red cliffs, and Zidane listened as one of the pilots told him that we'd arrived.

And we all lapsed into silence as the ship landed near the small camp of Alexandrian soldiers. The puffy red dust which rose up around the ship clogged my throat for an instant, and I was forced to cough in a ungraceful manor to remove it.

As we pilled out, Lani spoke to that one mage who's name I could never recall, and Zidane conferred again with Vivi. Everyone seemed edgy. The pressure which I could feel in my inter most soul was at the very edge of boiling out.

A soft wisper from a short man next to me forced me to stop contempating the pressure. He held out a tiny lithograph and with a frog like smile requested me to sign it. I patted my pockets in search of a nice pen, and when the search turned futile he produced one from beside his ear.

"Who shall I address this too?" I asked, coughing again slightly as some more of that toxic red dust infiltrated my lungs.

"Vivere Parvo." He said, and I noticed how very frog like his voice sounded. It was a good thing Quina was not present to admire this man.

"V-i-e-r-e?"

"Quite right Young Queen." I inwardly grimaced at the unfortunate nickname of "young" queen, but signed the lithograph anyway.

"There you are, take care." I gave him one of my fashioned smiled and then walked quickly towards Zidane.

Lani called out something like "Lets go" although it was obscured by the Red Rose' engine. With her leading us past the Alexandrian guards who'd reported that they had seen or heard nothing of Lumos still, that sinking feeling in my heart grew worse.

Vivi 

I watched the back of the group as we wondered about the many halls of Oeilvert. I remembered the strangely organic halls from before, they seemed almost familiar now. In fact, I rather liked them. They were not as oppressive as those on Terra, and yet their plant like nature amazed me.

I didn't quite understand why Zidane had asked me to come along, after all I couldn't use any magic. He didn't usually make decisions like this… I wondered what was up with him.

I fixed my hat. Then I watched Beatrix who walked near me. I hated it when no one talked, but at the same time I didn't know what to talk about…

And that was when I first heard it.

_Deos Deia corpsa neial peos. _

I knew instantly that the words were inside my own mind, although how anyone could speak like that with the magic barrier around was a mystery to me.

_Caoms lovar lish nehs oparvi. _

I closed my eyes and allowed whatever it was to take away my body from me.

Somewhere in the distance I heard Zidane screaming as the voices tried to take his own body away from him.

"Just give in." My body told him, and all went dark.

Lumos

The voices had ended.

My eyes flickered up to Kuja who was panting as he knelt on the floor not four feet form me.

"There." He gasped out.

"Why are they here?" I asked.

"Those must have been the souls of the Terrains in those other containers." He stated, his eyes drifted up to the mutilated body before us. The body was still living I noticed, but luckily the poor guy was sleeping. "So do you think the door is open now?"

I leaned back against the wall, and felt solid stones. "Nope."

Kuja just glowered as I replied, and started working on another method to open it.

I walked over to look at the poor woman who lay sleeping in her glass tube still. I watched her for a moment and then jumped when she shot up at me with a rage.

"_Keep me here no longer!" _She screamed into my mind. I stepped back and fell over into another set of tubes which cracked when I hit them. Acidic green liquid sprayed out and Kuja instantly ran over to see what the hell I was doing.

"_Quite_!" He roared at her in terran. The woman stopped her screeching. I saw him concentrate briefly and the glass rose up allowing her freedom. "_There, now please explain to us what has happened to you." _

_"Genome… Where is your master, where is Garland?" _

_"Garland is dead." Kuja replied. _

_"Garland can not die, he is immortal." _

_"He died with Terra." _

Her eyes widened and she shot out her arms to grab Kuja who stepped back easily from her reach. Tumbling over as her one arm deflected into my side, I saw the strange mutation on her back flutter with life. They were like shreds of fabric wound together into cords which fitted together into something like a bat's wings.

_"Impossible!" _She screeched and grabbed Kuja by the front of his shirt. Her arms flexed at she shoved Kuja away from her and into the wall. "_Our greatest creation, indestructible he was!_"

Kuja tried to shake her off, but she would not release him. I stood up slowly and then replied. "_He has died, I have seen it myself._" Kuja's eyes flickered up towards me awkwardly, and then he looked down upon the ancient Terrian in his arms. She was sobbing now, although why anyone would sob for Garland seemed a little abstract even for me.

"_Now tell us, why are you here on Gaia?_" Kuja asked again, but the woman shook her head and headed for the door, Kuja quickly followed. I took the hint as well and walked after him outside into the hallway.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I could hear Terrian voices calling out, but they were slowly becoming fainter, less defined.

As we emerged on the other side of the door Kuja let out a gasp. The woman was no where to be scene.

Beatrix

I kneeled over Vivi as he spoke to himself in a strange language, I could see from the side of my eye that Zidane also lay upon the ground and that Garnet watched over him as well. He poor body shook in sad convulsions and then after a moment lay still. He still murmured in the strange language, but nothing as powerful as before.

I swept some hair from my face and looked down at the tiny mage. His slight frame so capable of destruction had always been heartily pledged towards good. And his nature was so charismatic…

Vivi, always charismatic without even intentionally meaning so. Perhaps the bright golden eyes or awkward fidgeting made him endearing. But there was something more plush about his nature that lead a person to feel like they could lend their darkest secrets to him, and never worry about the consequences. Most found that the stuff animal like quality he contained was a person should ever hope for in a good friend.

Garnet shrieked, and I raised my sword parallel to the ground. Her shriek however was a sign of joy at Zidane's groan.

He popped an eye open and looked up at her through it. "Gaarnnet?" He spoke with an odd slur.

"Zidane!" She wrapped him up in a hug and grinned, "what happened?"

"I doono all these voices? I h'rd them." He looked around at the rest of the group and then relaxed back against the floor of the hall. It was then that he noticed Vivi's nervously twitching frame.

"Whaths up with him?"

I countered his look of concern with a direct statement. "He collapsed the same way you did, I assume it, whatever it was, effected you both." I stated directly to him.

One of his eyebrows launched upwards and he stared around for a moment before half crawling half pulling himself over to Vivi. "He'z spakin 'n Terrian." Zidane slurred out.

"What's wrong with your voice?" Lani snapped.

"I doono… Thar's somethin wrong?"

"I think it's getting better!" Garnet said optimistically.

"What is he saying." I said pointing Zidane's attention back towards the mage.

"Oh yeah…" He sat there puzzled for a moment, arched the other eyebrow up, put it back down and shook his head. "I've no idea."

"It's Terrian isnt it?"

"Well… Sorta…" He frowned, Lani kneeled down next to the mage and frowned as well. Zidane sighed and looked up at me as though wondering if I could do anything to help him. I frowned back.

We sat in silence for a moment, before a resounding humming started to echo around the building. I watched Zidane screw up his eyes and look about franticly, as though he knew what was coming.

And I couldn't help but reach out and grab Garnet's hand, almost more to comfort myself then for her reassurance.

/ The language I used for ancient Terrian is slightly Latin, slightly nonsensical. I'm also looking for someone to beta test my chapters for me, if anyone's interested. XD /


	6. Something Amiss

Kuja Kuja

It's too late now. CisLia, the poor mutilated Terra had already sought out its destructive powers. Free, pissed, and in possession of all the genomes memories, I got the feeling that things would only get worse from here on out.

"Hey Kuja…"

"Yep."

"What do you mean by a 'Vigororis Cortoar'?" Lumos asked giving me a disgruntled look after I had trailed off into a conversation in my head.

"Well…" I said, stopping to add a dramatic effect. "It means…" I paused again and rolled my hand around in the as though I was thinking, even though I really wasn't. See, I just love to toy with idiots like this boy. "Energy Compressor."

"What's that mean?"

I desperately wanted to twitch my eye. But rather a highly sarcastic response was in order. "Energy, as in the tiny harmonic threads of the universe from which all motion results. Compression as in combining something into a smaller object."

He glared, I grinned.

We walked on in merry silence till I heard some garbled language up ahead.

"Well at least I'll still die when everyone else does." I let out a cool chuckle as the soft humming grew louder.

Zidane

I twirled my daggers around through the air and watched as my lovely wife pulled herself into a tiny blue jumper. She looked adorable, just as she had years ago when we'd fought Kuja.

"I feel silly." She said admiring herself in the full length mirror of our room.

"Your adorable." I replied and gave her a small kiss on the cheek. "I'm going down stairs to speak with Mikoto, come down when your ready."

She nodded and then began stripping off the little jumper. I left before she could get to far with it and captivate my attention again.

"Any word from Kuja?" I asked as I entered the great hall. Mikoto glanced up and shook her head. I sighed; Lani had been the last person to see him. Apparently Lumos was also missing. Not to mention this odd creature that had gone after Black Mage Village and killed the majority of those living within it.

What was the world coming to… again?

"Zidane?" Mikoto asked suddenly standing up and approaching him. "I have reason to believe the attacker was of Terran origin."

"You do?"

"Vivi has relayed to me some of his mental images, nothing on this earth could possibly be created so."

I shook out my head and then turned to one of the guards near the entranceway. "Will you go get Steiner and Beatrix for me? And ask Emile to ready the invincible?"

The lovely woman saluted and hurried off to find her commanders.

"Do you intend to fight it?" Mikoto asked anxiously.

"Of course." I pulled out the Ultima Weapon and admired the brilliant color of the blades for a moment. "The Black Mage Village is as much my home town as any of the rest of the genomes. Besides, if it attacked the genomes there, what makes you think it wont continue?"

Mikoto nodded and then pulled a little bit of paper from her pack. "I found this, Garland wrote it a long time ago, I think it had something to do with our current situation."

I took the page from her and glanced it over. It was in some sort of Terran, but the letter didn't come to me.

"I can't read it."

She sighed, "I will look for Kuja, he would be able to make better sense of it then me. I hope he is not completely lost without his magic."

"He knows how to fight well enough without it." I replied as a sudden clanking alerted me to the arrival of Steiner. Beatrix and Garden, both far quieter, we're also with him at the door.

"Garnet has spoken to us about the attack." Steiner announced with a salute.

"Well then, the Invincible should be ready then. Let's go pick up everyone else in Lindblum shall we?"

My lovely wife gave me an encouraging nod. It was those little things she did to reassure me that had kept me going before. I felt glad that they were back.

Kuja

We entered the engine room to find it uninhabited. The odd language, that I had been sure was Terran, in fact came from some horribly mutilated stone faces on the walls. I let out a sigh of relief.

Lumos had crashed through the wall with a great deal of force, enough to put me half way through the container holding CisLia. Trouble was, she didn't need much more of a wake up then that. Rather then dieing instantly as I had thought while healing myself her body had begun some sort of restart after thousands of years. Hard to say what exactly she'd thought, waking up to a pair of drenched genomes and not her ancient friends. A moment later we'd both felt our memories ripped from our bodies, taken inside CisLia herself. It had been horribly disorientating. I could still hardly think straight.

"So… Why do you think she was so angry?"

"Wouldn't you be angry to wake up and find you world destroyed?"

"I was." Replied Lumos in a callous tone. It took a great deal of effort on my part not to blast him with flare right then and there. However the loud humming of the engines reminded me of our need to shut down this place completely.

"So… You think she will return here?"

I nodded, finally finding the ancient control panel.

"Why?"

This genome was so childlike. "She'll eventually become interested in awakening her compatriot down there." I replied tersely.

"Why shouldn't she be allowed too?"

I growled and smashed in the final code to shut down all the systems within Oviliert. "Because, you ignorant soulless doll, she will want the only company from ancient times there is to be had. Wouldn't you? And! Before you ask anything more, know that these are the ones who created us, created Garland, put Terra's destructive cycle into place millennia ago. They could rip our insignificant souls from our bodies and replace them with a will all their own. We are lucky she did not turn upon me instantly for destroying Terra."

Lumos backed away and then marched out of the generator room. I let him go, I had no use for him now. Pulling out my rapier I headed up a small flight of steps to my left, it was thick with monsters, but the stair well would eventually lead all the way out of this place. The computer had told me that.

Sors: A new chapter? OMG!


End file.
